According to FourWeekMBA's definition of business engineering, business engineers are a hybrid between entrepreneurs, executives, and business strategists, combining a deep understanding of business modeling to accelerate experiments, design thinking to develop products with a customer-obsessed approach. Through concepts such as nonlinear competition, transitional business modeling, and technology modeling, there is a deep understanding of business expansion.
Author Gennaro Cuofano proposed the role of business engineers, who have the ability to deeply understand technology, design experimental processes to test business models, and reverse engineer business core assets. (Reverse engineering business refers to identifying the most fundamental and valuable parts of a company, namely its "core assets", by analyzing and deconstructing its existing operating model. This may include technology, products, distribution channels, customer relationships, brand influence, etc. Business engineers use reverse engineering ideas, starting from results (such as revenue models, financial performance), and gradually going deep into the internal operating mechanisms of the company to understand what enables the company to succeed in the market or maintain a competitive advantage. The reverse engineering process aims to understand how the business works, what factors drive its growth and profitability, and how to replicate or improve these key elements. This ability is essential for innovation, improving existing business models or creating new business models. In this way, business engineers can discover potential points of improvement or find new opportunities to subvert the existing market structure.)
The core of business engineering is experiments based on business modeling, by understanding and operating the company's underlying economic structure, such as capital flow, core competitiveness, etc.
Business engineers draw on design thinking to understand and create value by focusing on customers. They not only understand customer needs, but also test business models through experiments and iterations to build a closed feedback loop. Business modeling serves as a foundation to help them analyze the business, from external factors such as revenue to internal core assets.
Results:
- Business engineers combine design thinking and business modeling to form an innovative working method, namely "customer-centric" business engineering. This approach enables them to create exponential opportunities, break competitive patterns, and gain value from customer feedback through experimentation and iteration.
- Business engineers understand how to distribute technology and how to test and verify the assumptions of these technologies in the real world.
- The results are reflected in the growth and development of the business, that is, the ability to adapt to market changes, respond quickly, and optimize the business model through experimentation.
Inspiration for traditional designers:
- Customer-centric: Design thinking emphasizes customer experience, but business engineers go a step further and put customers at the core of business strategy, emphasizing bottom-up innovation and exponential growth opportunities. Designers can think about how to understand and respond to customer needs more deeply and create designs that are not only beautiful but also have high added value.
- Experimentation and iteration: Business engineers use business modeling to conduct experiments and quickly test assumptions. Designers can also learn from this rapid prototyping and iteration process to continuously optimize design solutions to ensure that they can adapt to market changes and user needs.
- Business model understanding: Understanding the business model is very important for designers because it affects the function, form and market positioning of the product. Designers can learn how to analyze the business model to better integrate design with business goals.
- Complex system understanding: The business world is a complex system, and designers need to be aware that their design decisions may have a domino effect. Considering how the design affects the entire system and how it interacts with other business elements can help create more impactful design solutions.
- Linear vs. nonlinear competition: In a rapidly changing market, designers should recognize that short-term competition may be linear, while long-term competition may trigger industry restructuring. This means that designers must remain flexible, foresee future trends, and design products and services that can adapt to these changes.
- Incremental vs. breakthrough thinking: Designers should learn when to adopt incremental improvements and when disruptive innovation is needed. In some cases, small improvements are enough to remain competitive, while in other cases, bold innovation may be necessary.
- Technology and Economic Incentives: B